Ludacris Breaks Down His Most Iconic Tracks

Man, when you look at the discography

of records that I have, mans, you'd be surprised.

Sometimes I [beep] forget how many hit records I got.

♪ I wanna lick, lick, lick, lick you ♪

♪ From your head to your toes ♪

♪ And I wanna move from the bed ♪

♪ Down to the, down to the, to the floor ♪

♪ And I wanna ah, ah ♪

♪ You make it so good I don't wanna leave ♪

♪ But I gotta kn-kn-kn-know ♪

At this time,

I was still a radio personality in Atlanta, Georgia

on a station called Hot 97.5,

which is now Hot 107.9.

Not much money in my pocket, you know what I mean?

Still pretty much just making it day by day,

but engulfed in music and loving every aspect of it,

and just waiting for my opportunity to shine.

And this was my opportunity.

♪ I wanna get you in the Georgia Dome on the 50-yard-line ♪

♪ While the dirty birds kick for three ♪

♪ And if you like it in the club ♪

♪ We can do it in the DJ booth ♪

♪ Or in the back of the VIP ♪

Fantasy was produced by Bangladesh,

who was my barber at the time,

and we had a flip side 'cause it was vinyl at the time.

On the other side,

Organized Noize produced a song called Game Got Switched,

and I was just going back and forth

about which song I should release first.

'Cause on one hand, you had Organized Noize.

They were already established.

They had produced records with OutKast

and Goodie Mob and all these people,

and it seemed like the obvious choice,

but then I had Fantasy, and I was like,

But this doesn't sound like anything out.

This is uniquely Ludacris.

I prayed on it, man,

and I literally just one day said,

I'm going with 'Fantasy.'

And the rest is history.

♪ Cadillac grills, Cadillac mills ♪

♪ Check out the oil my Cadillac spills ♪

The last inning of the game, you know what I mean?

Trying to get everything together,

we had a deadline, went to Pharrell,

and we did this record, man.

At first I thought it was just okay.

You know, I'm in the car writing to this record.

Literally, we went to Virginia Beach.

This is where Pharrell was at.

He played the beat.

I liked it.

Went into the parking lot in the car.

That's where I write my music, in the car.

That's where I write my best music.

And was writing to it.

Came back in maybe about 45 minutes, an hour later,

started spitting the verse.

We came up with the hook together,

and I just remember arguing like,

Man, I like this record, but I don't know, man.

I don't know if it's a smash.

I don't know if it's a smash.

And I love saying this 'cause it doesn't happen often.

I was wrong.

That record's a fuckin' smash.

♪ Hit by stars ♪

♪ Hit by cars ♪

♪ Drunk off the liquor ♪

♪ Getting hit by bars ♪

♪ Keep your girl close 'cause she's hit by far ♪

♪ Hit by The Neptunes ♪

♪ Hit by a guitar ♪

Me hanging upside down in that video,

something that a lot of people may not know.

I had just eaten maybe about 45 minutes

before shooting that scene where I'm hanging upside down.

Definitely threw up like a motherfucker,

and as soon as I did it,

I was like, All right, let's keep going.

I'm ready to roll.

♪ I've got hos ♪

♪ I've got hos ♪

♪ In different area codes ♪

♪ Area ♪

♪ Area codes ♪

♪ Codes ♪

So, Area Codes came about in such an organic way.

This is my first time traveling the world,

going from city to city,

and definitely picking up numbers

and hollering at women in every single city,

so I had this mental Rolodex,

no matter where I was at.

I know if I was in Jersey, I was like 201.

if I'm in New York, 718.

You know, I would have all these different numbers,

and we were sitting in a limo one day, the whole crew,

and somebody was like, Oh, what's 305?

And we was like, Nigga, that's Miami.

That's one of your hos in Miami.

Somebody else was ringing,

and they'd be like, Oh, it's 813.

Oh, man, that's Tampa, man.

You gotta know that.

So, it was almost like this extreme game

that we would play because we would never

record their names into it.

We just got the phone number,

so you'd have to remember what city every area code came to,

so that record is 100% organic.

In terms of working with Nate Dogg,

I believe I sent him the record.

We had worked with him in studio so many times,

but this particular time,

I believe we sent it to him and waited for it to come back.

When we got the record back,

we knew it was an instant classic.

That one I knew.

[Rollout by Ludacris]

I just vaguely remember like,

We need a single. We need a single.

You know that whole game you play

with your record label

and the commercialization of trying

to continue to stay authentically yourself

as an artist, Ludacris,

but also understanding the politics of the game

and knowing that you want something to hit Number One.

We went to Timbaland, and he made it happen, man,

and even more so when we were shooting this video.

The video for Rollout,

before the big head post effect was there,

we didn't feel like we had a good enough video.

Like, it was just regular.

Everybody was like, This isn't good enough.

Def Jam was like, It's good enough.

It's cool, but it's not what we need,

And then I don't know if I came up with the idea.

It probably was because of my craziness.

I was like, Let's put a big-ass head on me

and just make it bobble,

and that was that one factor that made that video

turn from just okay to out of this fucking world

to Ludacris.

So, that's the Rollout aspect of it.

But we got our hit from Timbaland,

Thank you. Number-one record.

And we also got a video that just moved people's imagination

to a whole other place.

♪ Move ♪

♪ Get out the way ♪

♪ Get out the way ♪

♪ Get out the way ♪

♪ Move ♪

♪ Get out the way ♪

No joke,

I told you some of my best music is written in the car.

I'm driving on the highway one day, just frustrated,

and again, authentically, organically,

somebody's in front of me,

and while I'm writing to this track,

it just occurred to me, just move, bitch, get out the way,

and it stuck.

And in the video, of course,

the stars all aligned exactly the way that they needed to.

The Afro being out, all the guest appearances on there,

my own homie Infamous 2-0 being from Decatur,

it was just one of those records that just moved the needle,

and till this day,

people ask me what's my favorite record,

and I have to be political and say,

Well, what do you mean?

But if you're talking about performance,

strictly performance, that record is unfair,

because people pay to come see me in concert,

and when we do Move, Bitch,

they're the ones that's singing the record,

and I'm just having the microphone held out,

so they're paying to hear themselves sing and perform.

It's unfair.

♪ Aw, you just came home from doing a bid ♪

♪ Tell me what you gon' do ♪

♪ Act a fool ♪

So, I was on tour with Eminem at the time,

and I got a call from John Singleton.

He had hit my agent,

and then they put me on the phone with him,

and he said he wanted me to try out for 2 Fast, 2 Furious.

He's sending me the dialogue

and the sides that I have to perform in front of,

and he's like, I really need this

within this certain amount of time,

so it was a rush.

I'm about to go on stage on the Eminem tour

in like 40 minutes,

so I'm going through these lines.

We go get a camera.

I'm kind of studying the stuff.

Put myself on camera and do the lines.

Next day, I get the call that I got the part.

That all happened within 24 hours.

The craziest shit that ever happened in my life.

Later on to find out that Ja Rule was the one

that was supposed to have the role,

and something worked out where

he wasn't able to make it happen,

and I was the the next person in line.

So, when you hear people say sloppy seconds,

sometimes it could be a life-changing experience.

[laughs]

I don't look at it as a bad term,

especially sitting here in front of you right now.

Shit, I'll take sloppy seconds any day

if it means I'm gonna be

in seven fuckin' Fast and Furious movies.

Goddamn right.

♪ Talkin' about traps ♪

♪ Cops and robbers ♪

♪ It's 911 ♪

♪ Please, call the doctor ♪

Act a Fool was made specifically for 2 Fast, 2 Furious.

John Singleton kind of gave me the whole premise

and told me This is what we need,

and we went in the studio and made it happen.

You know, one of my fondest memories of that

is shooting that video

and having the cast of Fast and Furious

be so much a part of it,

Paul Walker and everybody,

and if you go look at it,

it was just fun.

You could just instantly tell it wasn't nobody

forced anybody to have any type of fun in there.

You know, we just had fun, period.

And I bought that car, man, that was in the movie,

and also in that video.

It was like a Louis-Vuitton-painted Dodge Ram truck

or something like that.

I probably was able to drive it one time in Atlanta

down the road before I had a whole fleet

of the whole city following me in it.

Then I was like, I got to get rid of this fucking car

or I got to paint it a different color

'cause there's no way that I want this much attention

that I thought I wanted at first.

♪ Stand up ♪

♪ Stand up ♪

♪ Stand up ♪

We were in this studio

called Doppler Studio in Atlanta, Georgia,

and you know, it's so dope to think about this memory,

because it was literally just me, Kanye, and an engineer.

He had his ASR-10 with him.

He goes and gets these samples,

and there are not many sounds in this song.

It might be like six sounds,

but he's so particular when it comes to sonics that...

[scats]

To think about how that can become a hit song

because how things pierce through the speakers

in a certain way and making sure

that every sound is perfect

lets you know how great of a producer

and how much he pays to every detail.

And I just remember just being in the studio, man,

and it was just like, stand up.

It just came to me.

And again, I went in the car,

and then I started writing the first verse,

and just out of this world.

That was a record where I was like,

I know this is a hit record.

I remember Irv Gotti coming up to us,

'cause we were all in the Def Jam building at the same time.

Everybody had their different offices, you know what I mean?

You had Murder, Inc.

You had Roc-A-Fella.

You had ours, Disturbing tha Peace.

That record came out.

Irv Gotti was like, Yo.

That's what a fucking first single

supposed to sound like, man.

And you know, we didn't get that much love from everybody

until they start embracing you over time.

I was the only Southern artist in this building.

Everybody else is New York the fuck out.

DMX is in there, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Murder, Inc.

You know what I mean? Roc-A-Fella.

It was all New York.

So, once Stand Up came out,

them motherfuckers was like, We embrace you.

Welcome to New York, motherfucka.

♪ I pulled up with a million trucks ♪

♪ Looking, smelling, feeling like a million bucks ♪

♪ Ah ♪

What I remember the most about the making of that video,

Dave Meyers, man, who I love to work with so much,

he just is able to take a vision

and take it to the next level.

You know that big-ass shoe,

the little person hanging from my necklace.

I remember being on the video set

and somebody coming up to me is a little person,

and he said, Just so you know, midget is a derogatory term.

You shouldn't say that.

It's little people.

And I learned a lesson that day, man.

And it was a very valuable lesson,

and I have so much respect for the little people community.

So, thank you for educating me.

But, you know, that video's definitely iconic

in the sense of all the things that were going on in there

and just augmenting reality.

That's what I love to do.

♪ Welcome to Atlanta ♪

♪ Hammers and vogues back to the mackin' ♪

♪ And the clothes ♪

♪ Adolescent packing a ♪

♪ A knock on the dome ♪

♪ Who is it ♪

♪ I would happen to know ♪

Jermaine Dupri helped me get my start.

A lot of people don't realize that Madden 2000,

I was the first rapper to be on a video game rapping,

and he was the one that gave me that opportunity.

So, to come full circle

to get the record Welcome to Atlanta,

that was absolutely amazing.

And now, you know, you fast-forward 20 years,

that is also a staple, not only for the city of Atlanta,

it's brought so much tourism and money to the city,

but for you to specify one city

and then it goes around the world and do the record,

and people are just as excited about it

and you're not in that city

that you're speaking about speaks volumes

about how much a record is loved

when you're saying Welcome to Atlanta and you in New York.

[laughs]

♪ Take that and rewind it back ♪

♪ Lil Jon got the beat to make your booty go ♪

♪ Take that, rewind it back ♪

♪ Usher got the voice to make your booty go ♪

Man, Lil Jon sent me the record

with Usher's lyrics on there,

another record instantly as soon as I heard it,

I was in my house in Atlanta,

instantly, I was like, This shit is outta here.

It took me no time to write my verse for it,

and I was like, This shit is such a smash,

I gotta be on more than just a verse,

so Take that, rewind it back.

Put that shit at the beginning and at the fucking end,

then they kept it in the end,

so I was like, I'm on this motherfucker.

I'm on this record.

Fuck that.

The first Grammy, first BET hiphop award,

go back and look at that clip.

I was excited as shit, man,

'cause like, again,

I had been in all these categories all these years,

wasn't winning any awards.

That was the first one.

♪ Luda ♪

♪ When I was 13 ♪

♪ I had my first love ♪

♪ There was nobody that compared to my baby ♪

♪ And nobody came between us ♪

♪ Nor could ever come above ♪

[Interviewer] What was that like,

getting the call from Scooter Braun

and deciding to do that song?

It wasn't even a call, man.

I had a restaurant called Straits at the time.

He brought Justin Bieber to us

and he did this in person.

So, he came and was like,

Yo, man, this kid is your biggest fan.

He would love you to be on this record.

Or just from what it was perceived and looked like

because of how young he was

and him being from Canada and all this different stuff,

I didn't look at or listen to any of that.

It was strictly based on me listening to the music

and believing in Justin Bieber as an artist.

I didn't care.

Age had nothing to do with it.

Race had nothing to do with it.

Music transcends all of those things.

So, I said, Yes.

I knew what it was,

and that record was smash record,

and then all of a sudden,

all of the rest of the hiphop community embraced him.

The rest is history.

♪ Flossy, flossy ♪

♪ Talking champagne wishes ♪

♪ Caviar dreams ♪

♪ You deserve nothing but all the finer things ♪

You know, there's certain elements that you're like,

Okay, how does this fit in the Ludacris world?

Not only how can I get out of my comfort zone

and continue to do things that sometimes

people wouldn't expect me to do,

but it's still trying to come

with different subject matter

and working with a artist that

people maybe haven't seen me with.

I look for all of these different things.

How much do I believe in the record,

the tempo of the record,

the time of the record, all of these different things.

So, you know, that's pretty much what I'm looking for,

and when we did Glamorous,

that was another one that Polow brought to me,

and the record was pretty much done when I listened to it.

And all the elements to me said

this is definitely another smash, smash record.

Fergie was on fire at the time, anyway,

and it wasn't her first single, I don't believe.

I just remember getting on there

and just going with the flow, you know?

Understanding what the subject was,

understanding the assignment,

completing the assignment.

[Interviewer] I feel like some hiphop purists

don't appreciate songs that they feel like

aren't that old being sampled.

How do you feel about that?

Man, I'm okay with it.

You know what I mean?

How can I not be okay with it?

You know, I'm doing shows,

and there's a whole new generation

that is identifying with the record,

even if they may not have heard my verse

just because Jack Harlow is doing it over,

and I feel like he did it justice.

It'd be different if it was trash.

It's not trash, you know what I mean?

Jack Harlow did it extreme justice,

and I like the record,

so I understand where purists are coming from,

but if you don't accept what's new,

you'll become your own worst enemy.

You don't have to necessarily like it,

but you gotta embrace it.

♪ Now little Lisa's only nine years old ♪

♪ She's trying to figure out ♪

♪ Why the world is so cold ♪

♪ While she's all alone and they never met her family ♪

Runaway Love was a true test,

and a very, very strong risk in putting out

something completely opposite of what people

are used to Ludacris coming out with,

and being funny and being entertaining

in the sense of being lighthearted.

No, this was serious, and it worked.

We had Mary J. Blige on it.

I remember Polow da Don produced the record.

I believe Keri Hilson helped write the hook of that,

and she's in the background, if I'm not mistaken.

And I just want to say that

you talk about a record being impactful,

this record spoke volumes towards actually

helping runaway victims come back home

or find help in the things

that they were going through in life.

So, we talk about mental health now.

This is one of those records

that it has such a powerful impact

on human beings in general

because people knew so many people that had either run away

or thought about running away,

and I just felt like,

we hooked up with the 1-800 hotline,

and we partnered with them,

and so it was just one of those records that had

a hell of an impact.

And then Keke Palmer,

one of her first music videos, if not her first music video,

she was in this video Runaway Love,

and the rest is history.

You can see her evolution over the decades from that,

and I couldn't be more proud.

We just saw her the other day

at the Janet Jackson concert,

and I was expressing to her how proud I was of her.

Till this day,

I still get people coming up to me saying,

Thank you for putting out that record.

You have no idea how it impacted their life

or how it got a loved one back to them because of it,

or helped them call someone just to get help

and get things off their chest,

and to prevent someone from running away.

Release Therapy was extremely important,

and I can tell you how important it was

to win that best rap album category,

because I'd say the seven years previous to that,

I was in the category.

I was nominated for best rap album,

but Eminem would pretty much take it every single time,

and so I didn't give up.

I said, I'm gonna take this damn rap album home one time,

and I would be in this category with everybody else,

Jay-Z, DMX, Eminem.

That was pretty much it.

And I took it home that year, man,

and it meant the world to me

because that's what I set out to do,

said They not taking it from me this year.

No, no, no.

♪ Saying my chick bad ♪

♪ My chick hood ♪

♪ My chick do stuff that your chick wish she could ♪

♪ My chick bad ♪

[Interviewer] A very young Nicki Minaj on that.

How familiar had you been with her mix tapes

and her work up until that moment?

I had been familiar with her.

She was living in Atlanta at the time.

She was being managed by Debra Antney,

and she was around Gucci a lot at the same time,

and I noticed a lot of similarities

in how she likes to have fun in her music

and how it's theatrical,

and I think that it was the perfect matchup and marriage

to throw her on that record.

And the timing was perfect as well

because her rise to superstardom was just beginning,

and I just love that she was in that video,

and even more to do a remix video with all women.

This is before women have become dominant

in hiphop currently right now.

I set out during this Battle of the Sexes album

to be like, We need more women voices in hiphop,

and that's exactly what I did.

So, humbly speaking,

if you look at the years before

what I was trying to do and now,

it's actually happening.

You see that I was just ahead of the fucking game.

[chuckles]

♪ Saying my chick bad ♪

♪ My chick hood ♪

♪ My chick do stuff that your chick wish she could ♪

I didn't even know that was

my most-watched video on YouTube,

but it's great to know that, because, man,

when you look at the discography of records that I have,

man, sometimes it blows me away,

and I'm on stage, and I'm like,

Damn, that is another one I forgot about.

To know that the crowd is forgetting

about how many records I got,

you'd be surprised.

Sometimes I fucking forget how many hit records I got.

♪ Hands in the air ♪

♪ Make 'em stay there ♪

♪ Luda ♪

♪ Ludacris going in on the verse ♪

♪ 'Cause I've never been defeated and I won't stop now ♪

♪ Keep your hands up ♪

♪ Get 'em in the sky for the homies that ain't make it ♪

♪ And folks locked down ♪

DJ Khaled handed me the layup of life with that damn record,

and whoever else is on it.

So, Rick Ross, Snoop.

I will be able to perform this record

amongst some of my other records

till the day I expire on this Earth

because it is, along with Move, Bitch,

one of those records that is always

going to get the best reaction from any crowd,

any race, any age, any generation.

So, that's how I feel about All I Do is Win.

It's fucking outta here.

The fact that I went first on that record is even better

for the artist named Ludacris.

It's outta here.

We out.

Every sporting event,

every event where anyone can actually win anything.

that is the theme song for life, period.

Man, where do I see myself in hiphop history?

I see myself ingrained in hiphop history,

not only through my music, but through my personality, man.

And standing out and being influential and being unique.

You know, as unique as my sideburns are right now, man,

loving and doing things that other people follow,

but just knowing that I was the one that originated it,

I think that's what means the most to me.

Having a chapter in the book of hiphop

means the world to me,

and having fans argue about me

being one of the best rappers of all time,

that means more to me than you could possibly imagine.

Most of the people they put in that category only do music,

so for me to be multifaceted

and still be in the category of best,

that's what means the world to me.